The world is moving to digital. Kids play with digital things more than with physical. So how can you own a digital collectors item? Best solution seems NFT.
If I collect stamps, it's fun to show off your stamp collection because you have those stamps. It's different if everyone can also have all of those stamps, and the hobby is reduced down to "I have these stamps and also my name is on the blockchain next to each of them". There's no physical scarcity for the stamps, there's scarcity for your name being listed as a buyer in a ledger. Call me old fashioned, but that seems to suck the fun out of it.
I struggle to see the value (some CryptoPunks are going for outrageous prices). That being said, I think we are early days. I find these types of innovations to be interesting and want to see where it goes.
Even if you don't have a tangible good, you can still signal that you are apart of a group by buying an NFT.
NFTs are basically about buying status in a community.
With NFTs, the "thing" the NFT shows ownership isn't the piece that's supposed to be valuable, since that's readily duplicated, it's the NFT (and what it represents) itself.
"The social component" requires people to ask agree that NFTs are the right system of value, and that requires maintaining the illusion that the token itself is a valuable thing to own. So yes, if this formalized way of showing that you've spent money is widely accepted by a community as a status symbol, sure, go for it. But there's a lot of people even here in the comments who think that's awfully silly, especially when you can buy actual physical things that show your status to people who don't care about what entries exist on the blockchain somewhere.
You don't get to decide that for everyone else though.
You and many other people can think it's silly, but it's highly likely (If not proven) that there is a subset of people who _do_ think it's cool.
I don't really have an interest in NFTs, but I absolutely see why someone _would_ be interested in them.
I think this really hits the nail on the head. Even if you 'own' an NFT, you have no control over who gets to see it, who doesn't get to see it, who can casually claim to own it and show it on their phone (since it is after all identical to the real deal and no one's going to sit there in the bar and verify it - at least not without the existence of some kind of designated authority). This means that you did quite literally pay to have your name listed as the owner in some obscure place people may or may not care to check unless you're doing a buy/sell transaction.
Let's say you collect some rare item like "the sword of sauron" in some MMO game. This time, it's really yours because it lives on the blockchain. Sure, it's a digital item and the data (3D mesh + prpoerties) could be copied, but only the real thing can be used in game.
This thing is a real digital collectors item.
I could see this work with digital Pokemon and things like that.
I used to play Crossout, and there is no way to trade or sell your things to other players for real money.
I'm not talking about blockchains representing those items, I'm talking about those items being in the blockchain. This way, the item is really yours, you can sell it to anyone you want, on any platform you want. Basically just like a real item.
Right now, game items are stuck on the platform. When it's in the blockchain, it's really yours, and you can use it on the platform. Big difference.
I'm not claiming that this is going to be the future, but I think it has a high chance of succeeding.
Imagine all those digital items you currently own, you just throw it on some market and you can sell all of those for real money.
Maybe think of NFT as a pointer to the head of a link list, the start of the data distribution chain. And we assign some arbitrary monetary value to that pointer, because, well, there's only 1 head of a link list.
And that already happens.
When prestigious institutions are involved you'll be able to check their addresses and signatures too.
It is more about the transfer and hypothecation of value, which this scarcity and transparency allows.
If it doesn't catch on it doesn't catch on. Right now people are clamoring for this future.
If anyone could, at no meaningful cost, download a physically identical replica of a Jackson Pollock and have it, you can be sure the price of art would suffer quite a bit. Your ability to prove that you are the person who owns the work is meaningless if anyone can just also freely have the exact work itself.
There are people who buy originals because they truly like the work, and they appreciate and enjoy seeing the original, physical piece that you don't get with even the finest print.
You also have collectors who, in addition to the above, also buy art as an investment. Say you buy a piece at a small art show from a new artist. You pay a few thousand for it. They keep painting, and years later, are appearing in larger shows, or may have created a piece or two that generated a lot of attention. Now those early works you have from them could be worth a lot more as they're indicative of that person's earlier period. There are forums, exchanges, and shows exclusively for this sort of trading.
(Source: Married to a (digital) fantasy illustrator, attend a lot of art shows, and talk with artists and collectors. I hope to own an original or two from some of my favorite artists in the coming years. And no, it won't be an investment. =)
Effectively the NFT should be a delegation of some of the IP ownership rights.
a whole industry of appraisers and committees now gone. yay. automatic ability to pay royalties to the artist upon resale just built in, no contracts or enforcement of contracts necessary. no trust involved for lower value works where everyone is unfamiliar with contracts and lawyers. more efficient market available to all.
for it to have some value there must be consensus around it.
if I have the same exact copy of the digital art and I am selling it in a market that does not recognize NFT as proof (think about China that doesn't even recognize patents) what value does this hold?
or if two competing entities are both claiming to have emitted the one true token, which one do I trust?
we are thinking today: the artist can tell which one is the good one, but what if is the future and the artist is dead? do we need a token that identifies the artist statement? and who verifies that the content of the email was not forged?
isn't a piece of paper with a signature in a closet inside a notary office a simple mechanism?
What makes NFT special, except that probably collector are actually paying to collect NFTs and not the item attached to them?
I know many collectors, I don't see them collecting digital fingerprints
The blockchain is nice in that it takes control of that endorsement out of the artist's hands, so they can't "take it back" and stop supporting that endorsement. I'm certain that has happened to people. I'm also certain that this cure is worse than the disease.
If there would be a wallet filled with credits where I can gift / tip creators for their work independent of their bank | location | currency, this would be an amazing use case.
I could get behind that.
One interesting dilemma for prestigious artists is as their work resells at auction at higher prices they don't get any of the money, except when they go create a new artwork for their higher priced market. A way to fix this could be by the artist always being able to make genesis blocks for past artwork NFTs.
NFTs with image rights would be great for news photographers and paparazzi for starters. Or rather it would be good for lawyers representing them?
I think the point is, people are fans so they want to collect and have a pride of ownership.